Hashimoto Masayuki, Ma Yi-Fen, Wang Sin-Tian, Chen Chang-Shi, Teng Ching-Hao
Institute of Molecular Medicine, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan 70101, Taiwan.
Center of Infectious Disease and Signaling Research, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan 70101, Taiwan.
Microorganisms. 2021 Feb 2;9(2):310. doi: 10.3390/microorganisms9020310.
Uropathogenic (UPEC) is a major bacterial pathogen that causes urinary tract infections (UTIs). The mouse is an available UTI model for studying the pathogenicity; however, represents as an alternative surrogate host with the capacity for high-throughput analysis. Then, we established a simple assay for a UPEC infection model with for large-scale screening. A total of 133 clinically isolated strains, which included UTI-associated and fecal isolates, were applied to demonstrate the simple pathogenicity assay. From the screening, several virulence factors (VFs) involved with iron acquisition (, and ) were significantly associated with high pathogenicity. We then evaluated whether the VFs in UPEC were involved in the pathogenicity. Mutants of UTI89 with defective iron acquisition systems were applied to a solid killing assay with . As a result, the survival rate of fed with the mutants significantly increased compared to when fed with the parent strain. The results demonstrated, the simple assay with was useful as a UPEC infectious model. To our knowledge, this is the first report of the involvement of iron acquisition in the pathogenicity of UPEC in a . model.
尿路致病性大肠杆菌（UPEC）是引起尿路感染（UTIs）的主要细菌病原体。小鼠是研究致病性的可用UTI模型；然而，它是一种具有高通量分析能力的替代宿主。然后，我们建立了一种简单的UPEC感染模型检测方法用于大规模筛选。总共133株临床分离菌株，包括与UTI相关的分离株和粪便分离株，用于验证这种简单的致病性检测方法。通过筛选，几种与铁摄取相关的毒力因子（VFs）（如、和）与高致病性显著相关。然后，我们评估了UPEC中的VFs是否参与致病性。将铁摄取系统有缺陷的UTI89突变体应用于与的固体杀伤试验。结果，与喂食亲本菌株相比，喂食突变体的存活率显著提高。结果表明，这种简单的检测方法作为UPEC感染模型是有用的。据我们所知，这是关于铁摄取参与UPEC在模型中致病性的首次报道。
